Deathscapes

Profiting While Inmates Suffer

Profiting While Inmates Suffer

That there were serious problems with the care Moises received at Hall County Corrections is not a surprise. Advanced Correctional Healthcare has been sued more than 150 times over the last twelve years in connection with inmate injuries and deaths. ACH has essentially been accused of providing inadequate care in their quest for profit.

Three of the lawsuits involved inmates who died while incarcerated at Madison County Jail in Huntsville, Alabama. Their conditions were all eminently treatable. Deundrez Woods developed gangrene after a wound on his foot was left untreated; Tanisha Jefferson had a bowel obstruction that was nursed with laxatives; and Nikki Listau suffered a fall after experiencing seizures related to untreated alcohol withdrawal.

A basic claim made in the three lawsuits, which were all filed by civil rights attorney Henry Sherrod, was that ACH and Madison County ‘established deliberately-indifferent customs or policies concerning inmate medical care, including but not limited to a custom or policy of delaying or denying necessary medical treatment to avoid liability for inmate medical bills’. Such customs essentially reflect ACH’s business model, which ‘succeeds by underbidding the competition and implementing severe cost control measures, the necessary result of which is unnecessary inmate suffering and liability claims (dealt with through liability insurance)’.

Brian Sonenstein, who has written widely about the privatization of correctional healthcare for the independent press organization Shadowproof, came to a similar conclusion about ACH practices: ‘ACH controls costs by understaffing facilities, often with personnel that lack the appropriate skills and training, and favoring policies that substitute costly off-site, emergency and specialized healthcare, with only that which can be provided by nurses, who occasionally consult with doctors over telephone’.

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Lawsuit brought by the mother of Deundrez Woods against Madison County and Advanced Correctional Healthcare.

Article by Brian Sonenstein in Shawdowproof about the privatization of correctional healthcare and ACH.